Jean-Michel Gallet

Jean-Michel Gallet (b. 18 November 1947, La Bassée, France) is a consultant in agricultural development who has been working for French NGOs in Africa, Eastern Europe and across Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia) for nearly four decades, visiting Cambodia for the first time in 1991.

Discovering the energy and challenges of a country still emerging from the dark years of civil war motivated him to document through photography what he was witnessing, “not as a professional photographer but as a witness deeply moved by the resilience of the Cambodian people and the quiet strength expressed in their everyday lives,” as he recalled later.

Over the years, this patient photo-documentation encompassed an array of subjects, from waning practices in traditional farming and fishing to the enduring vitality of Khmer culture. Jean-Michel Gallet loosely organized his ever-growing photographic material in ‘diaporamas’ (still slideshows in thematic sequences), and ‘cartes postales’ (‘postcards’ capturing instataneous moments that might reflect historic trends and inflexions).

First focusing on Cambodia, where he advocated in the 2010s for the development of agro-tourism in the 2010s, he applied the same outlook to Vietnam and Indonesia, all countries he kept visiting for 8 or 9 months a year since his retirement. A highly personal approach to national realities that would certainly be helpful to ethnologists of tomorrow. As a matter of fact, in May 2025, the Bophana Center in Phnom Penh started to share online Gallet’s photo-archive related to Cambodia.

Teamwork: seine boats near Kompong Cham, nd [photos by Jean-Michel Gallet].